Thinking of modding your school into Oblivion?

[Darkh Templar]

They should send him to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation. He's obviously a terrorist in the making. C'mon , he made a map for a COMPUTER GAME. With GUNS! And BLOOD! And people who DIE! :ohmy: AND he's Asian. Clear markings of a terrorist. He is the evilest person in the world.

 

Evil, evil, evil computer game addicted, map making, sword wielding, terrorist wannabe boy. Evil. :ohmy:

[Goodfortitude]

I'm not defending the police. In my experience, and research, they are too overzealous to make that arrest (some to even fight, and I do have experience, but I'll let you do your own research). Too freakin' adrenaline/steroid pumped for anyone's good. I've seen WAY too many news clips and videos of them beating down helpless little women, rubbing mace in the eyes of defenseless teen girls, beating down small unarmed guys with or without night sticks, and believe me, I could go on and on. It gets much worse. I think that the only thing that keeps SOME of them from hitting you in the face for saying what they don't want to hear is the very law that they are supposedly upholding. Keep in mind I have a good friend who is an officer. I only hope that after several years on the force he is still the same great guy I once knew him to be.

 

But, about the article. Well, Parents......parents tend to be very worried about their little ones, even teens are still little ones to them. So, when they start seeing patterns, which is what I think is happening in the U.S. with guns and schools, they tend to get really edgy. So this mom, though she obviously knew more than we do about her son, overreacted. You can't really put in a few words what your kids mean to you. But, lets just say that not even the very thought of "shot guns" and your children really mix well. So yeah parents WILL often overreact. About the game mod, I don't really see the big deal either.......I mean heck, I think it would be cool if someone built a life like replica of their school or their home school, whatever. (in fact, I'll play that if you got it) :)

 

Now, because kids simply aren't raised to respect parents, guns, authority, or even LIFE....you name it, of course a lot of teens in America are going to bring guns to school and blow away their friends because mommy didn't get them the right kind of clothes to wear and they were getting made fun of, or whatever the excuse. There's never really a good reason for it. It's always the same stupid lame excuse...they were angry about something. Things like columbine just didn't happen in the mid to early 1900's in the U.S., at least not very often. People were, overall, friendlier. So, it presses the question, "what's changed in the culture that kids have become so freaking bold?" To be honest a lot's changed, and for the worse.

 

I'm not saying they weren't overreacting, all I'm saying is that there are patterns developing in the schools. When you've been hit repeatedly in the face, hard, and someone rears back their fist at you...you tend to "move away". I think this mom was worried about her son and some other school kids and didn't know what else to do. Her solution was to call the police.

[Marcus Wolfe]

Let us see what has changed since the early 1900s

The Black revolution: Blacks are legally equal to Whites or Asians, but do we treat them like that? And now that black people are free to go where ever they want,it's just more opportunities to get picked on (not saying it was a bad idea or anything)

Robotics and computers: Used to be everything had to be done by a human (to some degree). But now some things just do themselves, leaving us free to be badly influenced.

WWI & WWII: sh*t load of good men died some horrible deaths.

Cold War paranoia: It came it went and it left Vietnam a mess.

The War on terror: Suicide bombers, kidnappings, the world is at war!!

 

 

And that's not all........

[Vagrant0]

I think it speaks of parents and other people overreacting to recent and publicized events. Kids were certainly bringing guns and other to school before Columbine. The biggest difference is that those kids who commited the crimes weren't the gang bangers, or obvious psychopaths, but were the outcasts, people who kept to themselves, and had few friends. Because of this, people somehow got it in their heads that it was loners, goths, and now emo kids who were the big threat. Entirely ignoring all the other factors that caused this sort of thing. If you didn't have kids being harassed from kindergarden to the day they graduate (or drop out (or kill themselves)) you wouldn't have this sort of thing happening. Furthermore, it is only because of the media attention that kids get the idea of actually shooting up their school, or that they can blame videogames for their violent behavior. Video games don't cause violence, all they cause is people blaming something other than their actual (often solvable) situation for that violent behavior.

 

Like many here, some of my earliest modding efforts were rebuilding whatever school I was in within a game world. At that time, Doom 2 and Duke 3d had the most capable editors. It was in doing those things that I became familiar with level designs, object based programming, coding adjustments, and even computer aided drafting. I can say with confidence that it is only because of those early works that I developed skills, and understanding of systems which are marketable in the real world. By taking away and even punishing people for doing something they enjoy doing, all that would be accomplished is forcing those people to confront their own pathetic existance, and either find another escape, or snap and see how many other people they can take out along the way. Who knows, when all is said and done, these actions may only result in depriving the world of an inspired artist, and made the world not a bit safer.

[Marcus Wolfe]

wow.

The world has gone mad.

I use video games as an outlet for my violent impulses. And they're very useful for that.

let's take Interactive Buddy for example. Play it, then come back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, do you feel like blowing up one of your friends? Or whacking them with a mace? If so, please visit your nearest insanity ward. If not, tell me, what will you do when you feel like beating up somebody for no reason?

 

You'll probably play Interactive Buddy, or play another violent video game. It's the reverse of what the man says!

However.....

My 8 year old brother is extremely easy to influence through media. He'll buy the crappy movie tie-in video games, he thinks cartoons are real, and just this morning I heard him singing along with Clifford. Violent video games might do terrible things to his brain, but that's because his mind is like playdoh.

I, on the other hand, can distinguish video games from reality. So, until video games are so realistic people can't tell them from real life, we're safe from me going on a rampage.

[Vagrant0]

I, on the other hand, can distinguish video games from reality. So, until video games are so realistic people can't tell them from real life, we're safe from me going on a rampage.

You're forgetting something. People only distinguish videogames from reality because they have either been told so, or have otherwise figured it out. There are however people who cannot make this distinction. Look at people who play MMOs for 12-18 hours a day. Most of their existance is tied to that game, their friends, and their goals. In those cases you really can't make such an easy distinction because that game is such a major part of who they see themselves as being.

 

On the otherhand, if schools didn't want kids rebuilding the school in a game, they shouldn't make detailed maps of the school so available. Without detailed maps to use as references, kids would have to work from memory, and even those who would plan to actually do anything to the school would have more difficulty doing so since they wouldn't have nearly as much information about the schools layout as they do.

 

*edit* Seriously... My highschool even went as far as having some of the utility rooms plotted out in reasonable detail, the map available to every student within some sort of assignment notebook and could be obtained from the office by anyone. It really makes you wonder if they didn't want people learning the total layout of the school at a glance.

[Marcus Wolfe]

.....I see.

Video games are a way to escape from reality, but we get problems when people don't treat them that way.

[Darkh Templar]

Well like Vagrant said, some can't make the distinction between a game and reality. In some cases, that comes from either a lack of knowledge about the subject or a psychological disorder and some of those people are highly impressionable.

 

Somebody plays...say Postal 2, and finds it unbelievably cool to stick a cat on a shotgun, so gets his family cat, gets his dad's shotgun and plays some RL postal! I remember reading a newspaper article about some guys that were so into the Matrix, that they dressed up all leather and coats, packed a ludicrous amount of weaponry and stood in the middle of the highway, blasting away at cars.

 

Video games are, by all standards, the paramount achievement of escapism. Who wouldn't want to be a medieval hero, swinging his shiny sword around, destroying evil and hoarding massive amount of gold and jewels? Problem is, for some people simulated environments provide much more pleasure than reality, which is their fault, as much as it is the fault of the society that provides confusing and often multiple standards for socializing, entertainment and the pursuit of pleasure and happiness in whichever way.

 

 

Edited a bit :P

[Abramul]

Please quantify "a lot of people".

[Marcus Wolfe]

I'd imagine it's basically lowlifes, but who knows?

I must wonder, does the fact that games are increasingly realistic mean that more people will mistake them for reality?